My Brother and I

For those of you that don't have a brother, I'll attempt to explain what it's been like over the years.


Ages 0-5
Minimally aware I had a brother, or that I even existed for a good portion of this time period. When I wasn't busy shitting myself however, I somehow found the time to get angry at Mike. My earliest memory involves him, along with some furious rage. 


Ok that might've been a bit of an overstatement, but let me explain. 


We were moving from Alton, Maine (where you ask? Exactly) to Waterville, Maine. I was a baby, something like fifteen months old I believe. I only remember a few brief seconds, but these involved looking at my surroundings, noticing a car, a big ass awesome truck, my parents, and what's this? Who's this other tiny person? Hmm, he's riding in that big awesome truck. Well I look forward to joining him shortly! Hmm, no wait mother, you've got it all wrong. No, I shouldn't be riding in this honda civic, clearly the fun lies within that other car, you know, where the other tiny person is. Wait, hey..HEY! I WANT TO RIDE IN THE TRUCK WITH THE OTHER TINY PERSON. WHO IS THAT OTHER TINY PERSON?!?! I SHALL SMITE HIM!!


I don't remember anything else. But, I hear I did not enjoy the ride. Once we arrived, my parents couldn't have me crawling around getting stepped on while moving heavy furniture, so they put me behind a gate in the living room. Here is a picture you may recognize.

Unimpressed.

All the while I was presumably still wondering why I didn't get to ride in the big truck with my brother.


Ages 5-10
Life proceeded normally for awhile. At this point I obviously was aware that Mike was my brother, and not just some dude that happened to be around a lot. Siblings tend to get along at this age, and for the most part I  remember it happening that way. I would occasionally ask him what the next grade was like since he was one grade above me. He provided me with not much helpful information if I can recall. You see, I am an analytical type of person, while my brother is much more of a "fuck it just go with it bro" type. So while I slowly and nervously adapted to my new surroundings when moving to new grades and schools, my brother seemed to take it all in stride. 


"Mike, is 4th grade at the new school scary?"


"Huh? I dunno, maybe? "


"Well what is it like?"


"Pff, I dunno. I don't remember."


As you can see, our very different personalities were starting to become evident. Soon we each found the other to be a total son of a bitch.


Ages 10-18  
At this age, we were the epitome of brothers that didn't get along at all. Let's go over the differences. 

So, to sum it up, I was a scrawny picky eater band kid that didn't like sports. You may expect someone like that to get along great with a hulking mass of strength that didn't like any of the same shit, but you'd be wrong. We fought verbally and physically all the time. Now, since I was clearly in the lacking strength department (not so much anymore, ladies) I had to be strategic when fighting. A few techniques I remember from over the years:


Getting a full 360 degrees of punching momentum before making contact.


Punching him in the throat. (Ok that sounds terrible, it was kind of an accident.)


Throwing a full glass of water in his face, slamming door, running.


Running some more.


That whole throwing water debacle ended with me running downstairs, outside, and up the street to avoid his wrath. Even after he gave up chasing after me, I waited outside in the street at night for several minutes, while barefoot, before cautiously returning. But hey, I didn't get smacked that night. 


A few of his techniques included:


Towel whipping me in the balls.


Completely overwhelming me with his size.


That second one pretty much sums it up. If I was within swiping distance, he could always easily grab me, and just lie on top of me until I submitted. This is what led to my previously mentioned evasive maneuvers. 


Ages 18-Current
Complete turnaround. I'm not sure when how or why it happened, but we have gotten along great ever since. If I may get sentimental for a bit, it seems to stem from taking each other for granted at a younger age. You spend so much time with the other that not only do you see it as a given that they're always around, but you sort of end up hating them a little.


But later on, he moved out, then moved to a different state, I was off at college etc. We were both going through some rough shit, and realized we could talk to the other without being judged, something that can be difficult to do even with your closest friends. So aside from the occasional spat, we each stopped hating on the other. Now, we both like the red sox, and share a lot of the same friends. It also helps that he is fucking funny as shit.

He's lost about 70 pounds since then.

All from the beard.

He's still got his eyes on my ice cream though...

This One's my Favorite.

Here's my favorite comment from the article so far:


Fuck you sir. Fuck you in you oatmeal hating eyes. As of this moment I am enjoying a hearty bowl of slow cooked, steel cut oatmeal. It is delicious and flavored only with my towering hatred for you and for anyone who looks like you. Oatmeal being too good and wholesome for the likes of you, i suggest you breakfast on a bag of fried dicks.

Breakin it DOWN

I'm Horrible at Laundry

At some point, "Fuck it I'll just buy more clothes" doesn’t work. The things now living under your pile of socks are only going to get stronger and smarter unless you suck it up and go get your clothes washed. 

"SSTAAAIINNSSS"

Funds
Unless you're living somewhere with a washer and dryer, in which case I hate you, you'll need plenty of quarters to fund your laundry excursion. These quarters tend to disappear around the same time your clothes start smelling terrible, so if you don't have some small bills for your laundromat's change machine, I hope you like the circus, because you're about to jump through some hoops. This may or may not involve trips to the ATM, (fucking fees) the bank, (fucking closed) or a local convenience store. This seems like an awful lot of work for the 21st century doesn't it? By now shouldn't there be a way to just tap bills and they'll go *ffttt* and *poof* perfect change? And while we're at it, how about some sort of laser hot dog cannon?

What? No. Not what I had in mind at all. What the fuck?

Washing and Drying
Anyway, now that you've wasted most of the day securing your quarters, you'll also need to secure your clothes along with the detergent, fabric softener, and if you're fancy, other products like bleach and stain remover (you disgust me). Then, as soon as you arrive at the laundromat, it's time to figure out how you're going to do this without whichever of those items you inevitably forgot. Next comes separating your lights from darks, and your delicates from the uh...from the, robusts? And by separate, I of course mean cram as many clothes as you possibly can into into the smallest available washing machine. People that concern themselves with anything besides "Will this all fit?" or "Will they let me come back after this?" probably already have a washer and dryer at home.

"Point me to your single load washer please good sir!"

After you're done cramming your clothes into an unrecognizable ball of neglect, you can relax and let the machine do its thing for a little while. This is good, you've earned a break. After a curiously long 24-26 minutes, it's time to pull your clothes out. For now we'll just ignore the fact that there's no way detergent found its way into every little crevasse of your ultra dense neutron star of a laundry pile, and transfer everything to the dryer. Oh all the dryers are in use? No worries, I'm sure once the next dryer finishes, the owner of those clothes will promptly remove them.

Look who's back.

Great! You're almost done. If your laundromat has one of those flat rate dryers for an hour, good for you! If instead you have a dryer that gets you 7 or 8 minutes for 25 cents, welcome to the world of poor decisions. While 32 minutes might be enough time if your load is say, one sock, chances are it won't quite cut it for the sentient pile of clothes that by now can probably beat you at arm wrestling. But you're going to go for the bare minimum of time anyway aren't you? Go ahead, set the dryer as if your clothes are going to come out anything besides "hot...still pretty wet though."

I'll just leave my clothes under this rocket here...

Aftermath (Or if you're from the UK/Australia, "Aftermaths")
Congratulations! Your laundry is finally done. It's time to bask in the glory of not having to do it again for "definitely no longer than two weeks" (probably closer to a month). The high you get from being responsible and completing the chore is sure to make you short-sighted, and will inspire several more bad decisions, the first of which being to not fold them quite yet. 

I'm gonna pick out my favorite shirt, and go party.

A few days will go by and the non-wrinkly benefits you would have gotten from promptly folding your clothes have now gone out the window, so you might as well just dump your shitty clothes on the floor. 



Eventually the clean clothes will mix with the dirty ones and become guilty by association. The "flip the underwear inside-out" trick will start to gross even you out, and before you know it, the things living under your pile of socks are becoming sentient once again. Oh look, it's time to return to the laundromat!


You still disgust me.

Journey to England Part VII

As you can see I've given up linking to the other parts. Just find em in that side bar. 


So, sleeping in random farmer's fields! Thankfully no angry farmers/animals greeted us the next morning. But, have you ever wondered what it was like to wake up groggily in a humid field, not be able to shower, and face the prospect of hitchhiking over one hundred more miles? Oh it was fucking excellent.

Cheers mate.

My spirit of adventure hadn't worn off yet, so it genuinely wasn't too bad. We dug into our bag of bread cheese and granola bars for breakfast, and went back to the highway on-ramp, our new favorite spot in the whole world. Here we had the genius idea to split up. Mike would flag down cars as they exited, and I would do the pestering of people at the gas station. Yes, it really was an attack on all fronts. 


I began approaching several people, whose discomfort levels visibly changed from "moderate" to "severe". Noticing nobody was especially delighted as my unshowered self approached, I tried to be extra polite, but I think I only succeeded in creeping them out more. I felt a little dejected and glanced back at Mike, ready to somehow communicate "I'm trying my hardest, but a variety of factors seem to resulting in consistent failure'" with a single shrug. But oh, what's this? Mike was shoveling his bags into someone's car! NO FUCKING WAY!


Much to I'm sure a few gas station patrons' relief, I suddenly ran from them! I didn't want to get my hopes up, so I braced myself for Mike to say "they're gonna bring us five minutes up the road, but it's a start!" when instead he said something beautiful. "They're going like, 100 miles!" I nearly shit myself with delight. 


The drivers were a couple of delivery guys in their mid 30s. I'm not really clear on whether they worked for some company, or if they were just privately delivering things. Hmm, you know I don't know why I just included that last bit. Whether or not this was a private endeavor is probably the most boring detail I could've possibly included.

OMFG I ALMOST FORGOT. THEY WERE WEARING BROWN SOCKS!!!!

So anyway, off we went. These guys were talking about how you never see hitchhikers anymore. While this was enjoyable banter, it also served as yet another reminder that we could easily become stranded anywhere. Otherwise they were funny, yelling at their GPS for trying to take them through a service station. And oh man did they drive FAST. At least 80mph, and up to 100mph the whole way. When Mike and I were with that other speedy fellow before, it was a little nerve wracking because it was just one guy, and we didn't know the extent of his insanity. This time it was two guys, and while maybe a little bit reckless, neither were apparently crazy enough to have absolutely no friends, so it wasn't as scary. It was mostly awesome actually.


We went along with them as they delivered some piece of furniture, and then they dropped us at a roundabout, with about twenty miles left to Sterling. We certainly appreciated the help from these two, but boy did they leave us in a piss poor area to get picked up. Traffic was a bit thin. After about a half an hour of waiting, we looked at our map, and saw another roundabout about five miles closer to our destination. We decided to hold up our sign for Sterling while walking along the road, in an effort to look even more pathetic and evoke some pity from the drivers. It worked after not too long, but the guy could only give us a ride to the next roundabout. *Sigh* We took it, and then looked at the map again. It was a few more miles to another hopefully decent place to hitch, so we started walking again. It was hot and shitty, and we were getting tired. Traffic was so thin, that each time we saw a car we put our bags down, and put on a big smiley dance for people. Despite our individualized performances, nothing worked. 


And then suddenly, cows.

Whoa..

"Haha Mike, look. Isn't that weird how they stood up, got in a line, and are now staring at us silently?"


"Yup, let's get out of here."


So we kept walking.

"Oh look, they're running after us now."

I braced myself for the impending cowpocalypse, but thankfully the thin fence did enough to deter them from angrily stampeding us. I don't know what the deal was with those cows, but it was enough to distract us from our situation briefly. We needed that.


We walked another mile or so, when the nicest guy on earth decided to fall from the sky. He had a big roomy truck, and asked us where we were headed. We told him about our plans to visit Sterling, and where we had intended to hitch from next. He knew the area really well, brought us out of his way, and dropped us fifteen minutes from Sterling in a busy area. There was also a bus nearby that went into Sterling in case the hitchhiking didn't work out. He chatted us up the whole time and was all around nice as hell. We thanked him, and began what was hopefully our final hitchhiking leg of the journey. We waited another hour, nobody stopped, and so that was that, and FUCK HITCHHIKING FOREVER SON OF A BITCH COCKSUCKER. We again, begrudgingly took the bus. When we arrived, we decided to explored the town a bit, meaning drink beer. We dropped into a pub for drinks and lunch. 


I don't remember what I got, but I do remember what Mike got: Haggis. 


If you're not familiar, haggis is sheep heart, lungs, and liver all minced together with oatmeal, fat and some spices. Perfect, and why not take the less edible organs, and mix them with something shitty like oatmeal? And hey, while we're making the worst possible culinary mistakes, why not cook it in the sheep's stomach?

Worst water balloon ever.

No, that's what food is supposed to look like after you shit it out, not before. 


Seriously though, you obviously don't see haggis in the states, so he had to try it. I knew I had to try it too, but was glad most of it was his. How was it? Aside from the fact that it was probably never meant to be eaten, not too bad.


Then, off we went to Sterling Castle. 


That's enough for now. Please enjoy the Empire Strikes Back as you wait for part 8.

I Was a Child, and I LIED!

Does anyone else remember when they first experimented with lying? Some studies have been done to figure out why it happens with children. Some actually believe it's a good sign, because we often lie for socially acceptable reasons so it's normal for a kid to do the same. Plus if the kid doesn't lie he's probably a fuckin pussy and needs to get his ass beat. I'm sure I lied about all kinds of sftuff when I was a kid, but I remember one in particular. 


I was in the 3rd grade. Obviously, I was no stranger to harmless lies.


"Did you have your cookie yet?" 


"....no"


"Ok here you go." 

FUCK YEAH TWO COOKIES.

But on this fateful day I felt like testing my boundaries. You see, for awhile, I had wanted to skip school. (Let's be honest if you're 8 and don't want to skip school you're probably a fuckin pussy and need to get your ass beat.) However, when I stayed home from school previously, it was always because I was legitimately sick, and where's the fun in staying home if you're just throwing up the whole time? So get this, I considered pretending I was sick. NO WAY RIGHT?! At the time I was confident that I was the first person on earth to ever try this. I was slightly nervous about lying to my dad’s face, but I felt I could be convincing and after a nervous few seconds it would be over.


"Time for school!"


"I don't feel well.."


"Really? What's wrong?"


"Probably pancreatitis...I mean, my stomach hurts"


*pause* "Ok, I'll call the school."



It worked! Now what to do with my freedom? I laid on the couch to watch some TV and play with dominoes. Little did my Dad know, I was also basking in the glory of my successful ruse. However, a slight while later I overheard my dad talking on the phone in the other room. He mentioned to someone I had stayed home because I was “not feeling too chipper.” I distinctly remember those words. He went on to mention that after the bus drove off I “started feeling a bit more chipper.” He then shared a chuckle with the mysterious other person. 


FUCK he's on to me. 

I guess playing with dominoes, along with not showing any visible signs of sickness whatsoever had clued him in to the subterfuge. 


Thinking back, I suspect he was talking fairly loudly on the phone because he wanted me to hear him. It's possible there never even was a person on the other line, and it was just a roundabout way for my dad to tell me “I’ll let you get away with it this time, but don’t think I don't know what you're up to.” It seemed at this point he had no intention of seriously punishing me, but it wasn't about that anymore. It was about pride. He thought he'd seen through my act? Well I MUST NOT LET HIM WIN!

For honor!

So my genius plan was to go to my room and lay in bed the rest of the day. I'd had my fun that morning, but now it was time to bite the bullet and maintain my integrity. 


“I’ll lay here so long he’ll have to believe I’m really sick!” I thought. 


I imagined him coming by hours later, seeing me STILL in bed, and thinking “Wow, I guess he really was sick.” Then he would feel terrible for not believing me, and maybe he'd bring me some toast. Oh man if I could score some toast out of this second scheme, JACKPOT. Because like sitcoms have taught us, nothing helps fix lies like piling on more lies.


Well that shit got old quick, and my toast fantasies quickly faded. If I'm gonna lie in bed all day pretending I'm sick, I might as well actually be sick and that defeats the purpose of my whole plan! So I went back downstairs and played the easier way out. 


“I think I’m feeling better” I told my dad. 


“That’s good.” 

I don’t know where my conscience was during this whole charade, until *BOOM* "SORRY I'M LATE, MR. ROBERT P. CONSCIENCE HERE!" 


And the guilt flooded in.


I had betrayed my Dad's trust. I knew he'd be forced to believe that I was really sick, even if he suspected otherwise. I felt terrible for taking advantage of that. I almost would have rather he'd called me out and sent me off to school at the beginning of the day. I would've felt ashamed briefly, but then I could have at least avoided the guilt. 


Thinking back again, perhaps my Dad had decided to gamble. Maybe that morning, after I revealed my sickness, he'd immediately seen through it, and thought my eventual crushing guilt would be punishment enough, providing I didn't end up thinking "holy shit, faking sickness is easy!" and try staying home every other day. Or maybe after I revealed my sickness he thought "Bullshit...ah whatever." And let me stay. Well assuming it was the former, my Dad won his gamble. The sting of guilt forced me to quit the life of faking sickness for awhile. Lesson learned. 

And god dammit, I actually got sick later that night.